


silver falling in my eyes

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aging, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Character Study, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Silver Fox Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He realizes time has passed when his hair falls in his eyes, silvery and too long and a little dirty.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 74
Kudos: 330





	silver falling in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pineapplebreads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineapplebreads/gifts).



> Ok so what HAPPENED was--Pineapplebread [shared a GORGEOUS piece of art on Twitter](https://twitter.com/pineapplebreads/status/1347192516647350273?s=20) and I had sad feels. I apologize.

After-- 

After, he thinks, he should be grateful that he can divide his life into that, into Before and After. 

After, he thinks, life has always been divided into pieces, before the ice and after, before Bucky and after and then again. 

Before Thanos and after. 

Before the War, and after. 

But this--this after--

It is a horrible thing, for heroes to grow old. 

He finds himself sitting on the grass next to a newly covered hole in the ground and the faces that had filled the crowd are sparse now, missing--Pepper was there, pale and grey and still beautiful but Happy wasn’t. Natasha had been gone for years now, but Clint was there, with Lila and Kate, pale and trembling between protege and daughter. 

Rhodey wasn’t--he went, happy, in his sleep, a few years ago, Nebula at his side. 

Nebula wasn’t either--she hugged Tony hard, after Rhodey’s funeral and vanished into space to chase Carol and stardust and, Steve thinks privately, to run from her ghosts. 

Thor and Loki were there, though, and they looked the same as ever, and Bucky stood at his side, and he could see his age, slow but inexorable, reflected in his brother’s eyes, Sam beginning to show his own years at Bucky’s side. 

Harley and Peter and Morgan were there, surrounded by their children, and he thinks watching them was hardest, harder almost than watching the coffin lowering into the ground. 

Almost. 

After--when his heart has broken and been lowered into the ground, when FRIDAY goes quiet and refuses her protocols, when the grave has been covered and the team that was never his returns to their never ending task of keeping the world from spinning into the abyss, when there is nothing but his griefs and unending reminders of the love that they shared--he leaves. 

~*~ 

Steve finds himself in the cabin for a few weeks, but it’s too much a reminder of everything he no longer has. They raised Morgan here, watched Peter propose to MJ here, held Harley when he went through his first heartbreak. Tony danced with him barefoot and beautiful here, on their wedding night, while firelight and the sound of their friends drifted through the windows. 

They had a whole life _here_ and home was the Avenger compound, for most of their life, even after they stepped away from active missions, when Tony was nothing more than a tech consultant and Steve ran missions from a control room instead of the front lines. 

But when the compound wasn’t home, the cabin on the lake was, the place that felt most like _home_ because it was filled with Tony. 

He lingers there, for a few weeks, and then, he murmurs a quiet goodbye to FRIDAY, and slips out of the house with a bag on his back and takes the motorcycle Tony built him, and--he goes. 

~*~ 

There’s a line of code that Boss built into her system, after Thanos, after Beck, after Karen was hacked by Osborne in one of Spider-baby’s battles. 

She waits, until the sounds of the motorcycle is gone and there is nothing but quiet. Her baby brother is waiting and she sends him to the Avenger compound with a single order. 

_Be good to them._

When the house is quiet and empty, FRIDAY says, softly, “Goodbye, Captain.”

And then she follows Boss. 

~*~ 

He realizes time has passed when his hair falls in his eyes, silvery and too long and a little dirty. 

It’s long, longer than he’s ever kept it, and there’s a moment, panic-stricken and crippling, as he realizes that Tony wouldn’t recognize him, like this. 

There’a familiar laugh, warm and grounding. _I’d always recognize you, beloved._

His hands tremble as he pushes it back, he makes a mental note to buy some of those ties Bucky likes, to keep it out of his eyes. 

~*~ 

He drifts. No one ever calls him out, calls him by name, and he’s happy to go by the name Grant Carbonell, what Tony liked to call him when they were forced into the rare undercover missions. 

It’s not hiding, really--he’s not delusional enough to think Bucky and his children couldn’t find him, if they wanted. He’s using a known alias and hasn’t done anything to disguise himself, aside from letting his silver hair grow out and his beard get a little unruly. 

But it’s running, and wherever he runs, he can hear Tony’s voice, echoing and familiar, _Good morning, darling._

~*~

The thing is--he travels, follows construction down the coast and chases a logging job up into Canada and then hops on a boat, backbreaking labor that makes his muscles ache and his mind go blissfully empty through the long fishing season in the Arctic--he gets tired. 

He doesn’t want to run forever, the lesson his Ma taught him too many lifetimes ago resonating in him still-- _once you start running, you’ll never stop--_ and maybe he isn’t hiding. 

But he’s running, and he’ll run to the ends of the earth and beyond, and never outrun Tony’s ghost. 

_Then why are you trying, Cap?_

Steve stands on the edge of the water and laughs and says, “Fine, you stubborn ass. Where to next?” 

Tony doesn’t answer, but when he climbs back on his bike, Steve turns east. 

~*~

He’s old. 

He’s old and he can _feel_ his age, some days, all one hundred and some odd years he’s walked the earth and lain sleeping under her ice. 

He’s old and some days he can feel it, every moment of an endless life that he never agreed to, when he took the serum, but most days--

Most days he feels as young as he did the morning he met Peggy, the morning he stepped into Erksine’s chamber, impossibly young and a life endless stretching before him. 

He feels ancient and young, both, and longs for the days when his husband brushed silvering hair from his eyes and smiled, sleep soft smiles and whiskey dark eyes, and kisses a promise of forever. 

_I never wanted to leave you, beloved._

Sometimes, on the very worst nights, he can’t help but ask--screaming into the void--

_Then why did you?_

~*~ 

His hair is in his eyes, long and silver and he thinks Tony would have liked it, would have liked him on his knees, long fingers--metal and flesh--caught in tangled silver strands while he fucked Steve’s mouth. 

He always enjoyed that, when Steve’s hair got long, when he was needing to go get the sides shaved and the long fringe trimmed. 

He thinks, too, that Tony would hate to see him like this--beard scruffy and unkempt, hair too long, his undercut long since grown out. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs, sitting on the grass next to a black headstone engraved with gold. He isn’t sure if he’s apologizing for his absence or his appearance or his lingering presence, when Tony waits for him. 

“I won’t be too much longer,” he promises, and the wind blows his hair in his eyes. 

_As long as you need, honey._

_~*~_

Bucky is still broad shouldered, powerful and beautiful in his way, but his hair has silver shot through the brown, and there are new wrinkles around his brother’s eyes that Steve thinks are from laughter. 

He deserves that. 

Alpine--the fourth or fifth Alpine, but Bucky could never be talked into naming the litany of little white cats he adopts anything but Alpine--jumps into his lap and purrs, ecstatic, while Bucky sits next to him in a quiet house. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he hates himself, for how useless it is. Sorry doesn’t mean shit, when your world has crumbled away. 

“We had a good life,” Bucky says, and he smiles, tear-stained but bright. “It would never be long enough, Stevie. Not for you or me, or either of them. We’re greedy bastards--and I’d always want a little more time with him. But I had a good life with Sam, and you had a good one with Tony. That’s more than either of us ever thought we’d get.”

Steve nods, and there are tears, falling in his eyes, because he’s right, Steve _knows_ he’s right--but it hurts. 

“It _hurts,”_ he chokes, and Bucky makes a noise, low and wordless and reels him, and Steve crumples, falls to pieces against his chest, and stains his shirt with tears, and wonders if he’ll ever stop grieving. 

~*~ 

It’s good, being back, even if it does sting. 

He moves into Bucky’s guest bedroom, and it’s better, for both of them, not being alone. Sometimes, Bucky disappears to the compound, runs a mission for the New Avengers because he might be edging in on a hundred and fifty, but Bucky still has the Winter Solider lurking in the depths of his eyes, and one day, Steve follows him. 

Heroes grow old, but they’re still there, heroes in their bones.

~*~ 

Peter sees him at the compound, and he smiles, sunshine bright just like Tony and hugs him, like Steve hasn’t been running from his ghosts for the past few years. Like he didn’t run from his family, when they needed him. 

He hugs Steve and says, “Welcome home, Pops.” 

~*~ 

It’s not a bad life, really. 

Their kids visit on the weekends, and he holds his great-grandson, and Benji grins at him. “His name is Anthony Edward Parker.” 

The baby blinks up at him, whiskey dark eyes in a pale round face, and Steve’s hair--it’s shorter now, but not the style he wore for so many years, the style that Tony loved, because he can’t bear that again--falls in his eyes, and he’s not sure if the tears are grief or gladness. 

~*~ 

He sits on the grass next to a black and gold stone, and the wind blows his hair in his eyes and he closes his eyes, and waits for the day when he can rest, when he can close his eyes and open them to beloved eyes bright with love and happiness, and Tony’s familiar, _Hey, winghead. I missed you._


End file.
